The all-rights powerhouse is moving into co-production and aggressively acquiring 15-18 Nordic shows each year. 

We spoke to Muselaers, recently appointed co-CEO.

When you started acquiring Nordic TV dramas in the mid-2000, your business plan relied on doing tie-ins with a major newspaper, releasing the title on DVD, then launching it on TV. In what way has the change of the market and collapse of DVD forced you to change that strategy?
Marike Muselaers: We have always acquired all rights and DVD was always just one element in a bigger all-rights structure. That said, DVD has dropped dramatically and while we used to sell 800,000 box sets of Scandi TV shows a year, today it’s around 200,000. However, thanks to our long-time expertise, our strategy is to create tailor-made personalised releases for each show, and together with our partners we heavily invest in marketing campaigns.

How active are you today in the acquisition of feature films for the theatrical market?
MM: We are a film company at heart but the value chain for film has changed dramatically. The huge MGs we pay upfront for our crossover arthouse films are not being recouped anymore by the safety net of DVD, VOD and television. SVOD platforms and TV broadcasters seem to be more focused on drama series and mainstream films. The current business model is not sustainable, which is why we have withdrawn from film acquisition for the time being. However, we still own two cinemas in Belgium [in Bruges and Antwerp] and we are producing and coproducing films, and there is always room for creative business models and partnerships, even when it comes to distribution.

Do you have your own digital VOD platform?
MM: We are going to launch a digital store with new releases (around 20 TV series) in May 2017. Our goal is to make sure the audience can find a legal digital way to buy TV shows, as this does not exist in the Benelux. This is basically just the digital equivalent of our DVD webshop and it's crazy this does not exist yet for TV shows in the Benelux.

Is your strategy still to control the market for TV drama by buying as much Nordic content as possible?
MM: That’s correct. We are the main buyers of Nordic TV drama in the Benelux. However this is a very competitive market and our partners can also become our competitors. We sell local Benelux rights to broadcasters and SVOD platforms, but these buyers could go directly to our producers and buy the rights themselves. Ultimately, it comes down to the loyal partnerships we have built both with producers and buyers.

Are you increasingly involved in co-production to secure high end projects at the earliest stage?
MM: Absolutely. We’re progressively moving more and more into production and co-production. We have a full production department - under the Lunanime brand - and we have an animation studio as well. With Scandi producers, we started pre-buying, which lead to strategic co-productions, for instance with The Bridge, Spring Tide and several Miso Film shows.

The Team was our first proper co-production where we brought in roughly one third of the budget, Belgian cast & crew and all studio work was done in Belgium. We just co-produced with Yellow Bird the TV drama Occupied Season 2, partly shot in Belgium, and as we speak, we are shooting the Nordic Noir Hassel with Nice Drama and Viaplay in Belgium. The last two episodes are set in Brussels; we have a Belgian director (Eshref Reybrouck) and DoP (Christophe Nuyens) attached for those episodes. It’s a win-win situation: producers can tap into the financial benefits of our territory, like Belgian tax shelter and funds like Screen Flanders, plus we can put our MGs straight into the production to have distribution rights down the line. Next up will be The Team season 2, and we are also developing our own film, TV and animation projects.

Are you looking for specific genres?
MM: People tend to believe that crime is all we want, which is not the case! Our viewers are not turning their back to crime so neither are we, but we are actively looking for other genres to complete our slate.

How many Scandi TV shows do you have each year and what’s the share in your catalogue?
MM: We have almost 100 shows in our catalogue right now. I guess 75-80% is Scandinavian. We release 15-18 TV dramas per year and each title is launched with a tailor-made campaign. Our 2017 line up is almost full (we have room for another three shows), we need another five-six dramas for 2018, and we’re already looking at the 2019-2020 slate! For the moment, only 5% of our TV show library is not making money, so we pay a lot of overages to all Scandi producers.

Which recent Scandi shows were the most successful?
MM: Nobel was very successful. It was released via Telenet's PAY TV channel Prime in Belgium, and RTL's SVOD platform Videoland in the Netherlands. And believe it or not, it is also still performing on DVD, through one of those good old newspaper campaigns.

Midnight Sun as well was huge on VRT channel last January and it was released on DVD in Belgium early February. In Holland, we organised a premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival attended by Björn Stein and Måns Mårlind. We did a major newspaper campaign with the title for the Dutch DVD release on March 14.

Follow the Money Season 2 aired on NPO and will next be available on VRT.

Spring Tide is another great example of successful all rights launch. We organised premieres and press junkets last year in the Netherlands and Belgium (together with the publishing company). Writer Rolf Börjlind, actress Julia Ragnarsson and producer Francy Suntinger came over to promote the show, which was released simultaneously through a newspaper DVD campaign and PAY TV in the Netherlands (Film 1) and Belgium (Proximus). The crime show just started airing on NPO 3, primetime on Saturdays, with the first episodes attracting almost 400.000 viewers including catch up!

Which Nordic territory do you find the most interesting these days?
MM: I think Norway is amazing. They have a lot of very interesting projects in development across various genres. They dare to try new stuff. Besides Nobel, we’ve picked up Acquitted Season 2, Mammon Season 2. We had a big success on all platforms with The Heavy Water War, and coming up is the NRK series Monster. We are negotiating a few Norwegian TV shows for co-production and distribution.

How successful is your annual Lumiere TV drama Festival?
MM: It is still called the Lumiere Crime Festival although it’s not just crime anymore. Our audience comes because they know the best of Nordic drama will be shown there.

We usually have one marathon day where we screen all episodes of new shows and we do sell out our 400-seat cinema. What’s popular is that we invite talents from the Nordics and organize press junkets, so journalists can do all their interviews for the upcoming year.

Any advice to producers?
MM: We are producers as well so we know exactly what it involves. My advice is: choose your partners wisely!! We know what it’s like to be able to fully-finance a show and the temptation for producers to deal directly with global platforms. But, I also see TV dramas getting lost in the huge bucket of content these players offer, and there is no guarantee that people will watch your show. You often need a tailor-made strategy per territory to make sure the audience finds a specific show, which is what we offer.